


Reactions (the Meet the Family Remix)

by deird1



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Canon Character of Color, F/F, Remix, season: b7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-09
Updated: 2012-11-09
Packaged: 2017-11-18 07:49:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/558585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deird1/pseuds/deird1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting to know Willow means getting to know her friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reactions (the Meet the Family Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [untitled drabble](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/13476) by sroni. 



Willow…

Willow is gorgeous, with freckles lightly dancing across her nose, and the cutest eyes Kennedy’s seen in months. And while she wasn’t expecting to find romance in Sunnydale, it takes her less than an hour to decide that she’s going to kiss Willow as soon as she can figure out how to manage it.

Because those _eyes_ are just… well… cute.

 

It’s not as simple as usual. Willow’s been hurt before, clearly, and isn’t falling for Kennedy’s playful smiles and entendres.

So she decides to get advice, and tracks down Dawn. Who instantly responds with “Hurt her, and I’ll put a two-pronged serving fork through your ear.”

Then she has to sit through a forty-minute lecture on Tara – how _great_ Tara was, how _wonderful_ , how _pretty_ , how she was good at word games, how she made awesome pancakes, how nice her hair was, how _perfect_ she was for Willow, how much Willow loved her, how she was _meant_ for Willow, on and on for nearly an hour – until Kennedy is nearly suffocated under intimidating enthusiasm for someone she’ll never live up to.

But in the end Dawn pauses, looks at Kennedy carefully, and asks, “You really like her, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Kennedy says. “I mean, I’m not thinking romance of the century, or– well– Yeah. I do.”

“Okay.” She nods, adds, “ ’Cause I’m serious about the fork in ear thing,” and promptly crosses her arms and starts giving Kennedy ten simple, clear steps for dating Willow Rosenberg.

Dawn’s helpful. Once she’s decided to be on your side.

 

Kennedy corners Xander one morning, after training. “You don’t like me, do you?”

He shoots her a Look – capital L – and says, “No, I don’t. But Willow does – so I’ll be nice.” He shrugs, and keeps putting the axes away.

Not good enough. “Why don’t you?” she demands, and Xander eyes the stance she’s suddenly adopted, muscles tense, body poised for a fight, and he calmly answers “For starters, _that_. If something doesn’t suit you, you get ready to beat it down until it does. It’s stupid. And pretty annoying. So – no, I don’t like you. And anyway–” He pauses, shrugs again, and turns back to the axes.

Which is the end of it, as far as he’s concerned. But Kennedy can hear the words he almost let slip – _“And anyway, you don’t love Willow…”_ and is fuming, itching to _make_ him say it, to push him, to _dare_ him to say it, to her face, so that she has a good excuse to punch him, because he _doesn’t get to say that_ , not now, not this time, not about Willow. Not about _her_.

She’s falling good and proper for Willow, and so help her, if Xander says so much as a word about it, she’s going to hit him right in his smug mouth. And then she’s going to throw him through a wall, and…

Kennedy bites her lip, and concedes that he might have a point about that first part.

 

“Do you like being a lesbian?”

Two days before the end, and after a long and confusing conversation in which the logic of lesbianism, feminism, and lingerie are discussed in great detail, the last thing that Anya ever says to her is:

“Well, I suppose Willow is reasonably sexy, in a non-penisy way, but I prefer men. I’d recommend trying them out sometime – you might like the change. But _not_ Xander. And Willow is appealling, and nice, I guess.”

Kennedy nods, says, “Um… thanks,” and manages to leave the room before Anya asks any more questions about her sex life.

A week later, she remembers the conversation, and smiles. From then on, whenever she looks at Willow, a voice from the past says “she’s appealling and nice” in her mind, and the smile comes back again.

 

Kennedy’s first real conversation with Buffy happens in a bar just outside L.A. They both get drunk – Buffy mourning the sudden absence of Spike, and Kennedy complaining about the wondrous, the perfect, ex-girlfriend that she’ll never truly supplant. In the end, they collapse on the doorstep of the motel, and get hauled inside and woken the next morning by Faith, who forces coffee down their throats while making rude comments under her breath.

When Buffy groans and shuffles off to take a shower, Kennedy looks at Faith watching her go, and realises that, when it comes to loving someone still in love with their ex, she’s not alone.

Buffy and her never really get that close, but somehow the get-drunk-and-complain sessions become a regular event whenever the two of them are in the same town. Eventually, Buffy’s mourning for Spike changes to Buffy’s being irritated by Faith, and then at last Buffy’s mildly resigned grumbling – and blushing – about various Faith-related issues. Kennedy, on the other hand, still just grouses about the ever-present memory of the woman she replaced.

 

Willow…

Willow is sweet, with silly traditions of watching Charlie Brown cartoons. She gets stagefright, and can’t play piano unless she thinks Kennedy’s in another room. She wears ridiculous sweaters, and doesn’t realise how dumb they look. She can be downright frightening when she’s doing something she’s good at, and still might need to be stopped someday. And she likes jello.

She also has the cutest eyes Kennedy’s ever seen.


End file.
